Better late than never guys - a belated public CONGRATULATIONS on passing your Divemaster Courses with Watercolours. You did great and if you ever need a reference relating to the way you approached your training and professional attitude towards diving then please let me know….
More signs of illegal fishing at our favourite dive site! A massive net completely covering Tokong Laut pinnacle. Our Watercolours Dive Centre staff and a few customers helped us cut away the net and rescue many fish. Thanks also to the Marine Park Authorities and Bubbles for quickly sending boats and divers to help
This was a bad one but luckily we were able to remove the net relatively quickly. It’s not just the fish that suffer of course, just think of the damage to the corals…
Getaway is Australia’s #1 travel show. We got a good plug. You can watch the video on the channel nine Getaway website
When Natalie Gruzlewski was told she was going to the Perhentian Islands, she had no idea where on earth they were…. click here to view the episode and read more….
The new Beuchat wetsuit, inspiration taken from the orginal 1934 design, and seen for the first time in Malaysia 
Well done to our boat drivers and compressor technicians! These guys are all Open Water divers now. Thank you to Flora Bay Divers for teaching them the theory. Anke helped them through their in-water training
From top left clockwise: Rosa, Ewan and Kharul (boatmen), Rusdi (kompressor), Anke, Kharul (kompressor) and Kimmi (boatman). And the little one looking between the drinks is Sofia.
Getaway is an Australian travel show shown on channel nine. They visited the Perhentians and Watercolours this week to film a few dive sites and around the islands. A big thanks to Chris, Rochelle, Tangles and Nat and the Getaway team for choosing Watercolours to show them around. We had a good time
Congratulations guys on getting a whale shark encounter at Tokong Laut this morning. The grinning divers are Jules, Wid, Petra, Sarah, Jonny and Claudia.
Anyone who has not been here yet is missing a great dive!
Anke got a surprise the other day when snorkelling up at the rocks. She was getting some nice footage of the batfish… but then…
We’ve just completed more reef surveys as part of the Sustainable Island Programme. Another talented bunch of divers from KL came in to help monitor our reefs and to have lots of fun in the process. Apart from an abortive attempt to survey Tokong Laut (not enough corals at the right depth - sorry, my fault guys) the surveys went very well. A full report on the MUW forum (click here). The Roll of Honour:
SIP #3 Participants:
1.Lady Boss Shafi 2.bijan 3.bajaulaut 4.Buoyantvenus 5.Daniel Lim 6.Trigger Fish
Videographers:
1.RoCKET 2.RoCKET’s assistant, labu
We would like to send out a MASSIVE thank you to the divers who give up their time to help survey or reefs, Shafi and the rest of the Wild Asia team, the Reef Check dudes and of course Sime Darby Plantations who make all of this possible with their environmental awareness and generous funding. Whenever I get down about environmental impacts I know that I can cheer myself up by looking around me at all the enthusiasm and talent in the individuals and organisations who are fighting to make a difference.
We’ve just had a fantastic bunch of people visit Watercolours to survey the reefs of the Perhentian Islands. The surveys were part of the Sustainable Islands Programme, a joint collaboration between Reef Check and Wild Asia. The programme is sponsored by Sime Darby and we are very grateful for their input and help. Until i get some info and photos on our blog for you to see, why not visit Malaysian Underwater to read their report. There are a number of photos that are worth looking at!
The Roll of Honour. We would like to thank:
(Shafi) Shafinaz Suhaimi, (Deepblu) Izwar Zakri (Scubabunny), Nur Lela Musrom (Mun) Tang Kah Mun(Miezegreat) Ummi Haslinda (Eve) Evelyn Wong (Belle) Belle Tang (Watercow) Daniel Chua (Jgshuwei) John Goh Shu Wei, Cheah See Siang, and Lee Yeon Huat.
A big shout out to the video guys too: RoCKET (Emran Taib), Ariffin, Ted Adnan & Helmy.
Izwar Zakri is credited for this fantastic photo.
Just in case you were interested, we are using the Reef Check survey methodology to monitor the health of our reefs and to indicate any potential declines in reef health. You too can participate, just see our Reef Check Eco-Diver course.
On a less-busy afternoon we decided that our boatmen and compressor guys should experience what they see us do every day… so we took our Watercolours staff on a Discover Scuba Diving experience. We had a lot of fun
Last year DYK (Scandanavian diving magazine) got in touch with me to ask for an interview. This is now out, although they haven’t sent me a printed copy yet. You can read the article here.
Yesterday (April fools day), two of our cats, ‘Phantom’ and ‘No-name’ volunteered to act as victims during Mark’s PADI Rescue Diver course.
Dave and Lynne were my first Open Water students of 2008. They were an absolute pleasure to teach. We would like to wish them congratulations on becoming certified divers… and of course even bigger congratulations on their marriage!!! Well done guys, you really worked hard to get your PADI course completed and we wish you many more years of happy diving…
Congratulations to Renata, Roy, Maxine and Maarten for seeing a whale shark at Sea Bell reef this week. I can’t believe you also saw a leopard shark at Fish Heaven. Why did I not go diving with you guys????
Our friend Peter from Byron Bay, Australia left today. To give him a good send off we took a dive near the Vietnamese shipwreck on the sand bottom to try to find some interesting marine life. And we found lots! From nudibranchs the size of my hand (really! we think it was Dendrodoris tuberculosa) to urchin crabs to seahorses. Sometimes it is good to dive away from the reef! Here are a few pics:
